Currently I am finishing a Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Arizona. I live with my beautiful wife and love trying new recipes when I can find the time. Time is a short commodity for me, so I budget time for friends and family, and love sharing new recipes with people. I grew up in the South and ate mostly fried foods, but now I explore healthy options when I cook to try and help me stay in shape. I love cooking paired foods that compliment each other. I try to find recipes where I can say "Oh, wouldn't that be fantastic with this dish" or "Wouldn't a cocktail/wine go great with this meal?" I love cooking foods that you can taste along the way, so you can easily modify it on the fly. My most favorite things to cook are baked goods, like pies and cakes and cobblers, because of my sweet tooth, but since I try to eat healthy I don't do it very often. The assortment of cookies and candies and pies that come with Christmas. We have a huge bake-off the week before Christmas and cook dozens of cookies and candies. My mother's chocolate chip cookie recipe easily makes 20 dozen or more cookies, so we freeze them as balls and can just pop them out and bake them any time we are craving cookies in the winter. There are lots of dishes that I have made and were proud of. Recently I created a recipe for Margarita Pie that everyone seemed to enjoy. I have also made stuffed pasta shells with bolognese sauce that was mouth watering, and once I made this cornish game hen dish that was really excellent. Of course, when you have been cooking for a long time, you make some disastrous dishes too. Learning to cook sometimes is just trial and error. When I was about 15 years old I attempted to make snickerdoodles. However, I wasn't paying close attention and added several tablespoons of salt. They were so salty they were inedible. It was so embarrassing. Fortunately, since my mother is an excellent cook as well, I have had the pleasure of learning from her what to fix when I make a mistake.